An hour was expended in turning about the refuse. All the coal had been consumed, but, singularly and inexplicably, not all the fleeces. Bundles of wool were found’not many, indeed, but some, singed, not consumed, which, when exposed, exhaled a sickening odour. The dangerous portions of tottering walls had been thrown down, the slate flooring exposed. Not a trace of Jason Quarm could be found.
Pasco, who had been nervous, watching all the operations of the excavators in deadly fear of a revelation of the charred remains of his brother-in-law, breathed freely, recovered all his audacity and boisterousness.
“I said as much, but none believed me. Jason is gone; he was not the man to sit quiet in a fire. How the fire came about is a question we won’t go into too close.”
“The bones you spoke of,” said Pooke, “we ha’n’t come on them. They’ve been consumed’perhaps poor Quarm as well. The fire must have been deadly hot.”
“It didn’t burn those fleeces,” answered Pasco triumphantly. “I’ll tell you what; Jason made off for reasons well known to himself. If we don’t hear of him again, I sha’n’t wonder; but burned here he certainly was not, as any fool can see. He was not the man to let himself burn. Cripple though he was, he could hop out of danger.”
Pasco turned to Bramber. “What is that you have been saying to the parson about hearing Mr. Quarm and his daughter argyfying at my door the night of the fire?”
Walter Bramber was taken aback.
“Yes, you said you had heard them in hot dispute.”
“I said,” answered Bramber in surprise and indignation, “something very different from that. I said”’
His hand was caught by Kate, who looked pleadingly into his face.